Tuesday, 28 January 2014

Sholay

Something I wrote on Facebook last year.

Watching Sholay
has started me thinking about Spaghetti westerns. It’s possible that I saw
Sergio Leone’s Dollars trilogy first
but I’m pretty sure I was ten, or possibly 11, when I first saw Sergio Corbucci’s
Django. It had been banned in the UK
for many years but videos brought new possibilities. A video shop opened up in
Thringstone, about a mile from where I lived and I would walk there with my
dad. Sometimes we’d get chips to eat on the way back. The videos we watched
over the next couple of years – a spectacular list of pulp and B movies - I
remember clearly:Excaliber, The Sword and the
Sorcerer with Lee Horsley (remember Matt
Houston, TV fiends?), The
Beastmaster starring Marc Singer (who we remember from V of course), Krull, Hawk the Slayer, Spacehunter:
Adventures in the Forbidden Zone (Molly Ringwald AND Michael Ironside!), Harry
Tracey with Bruce Dern. What a terrible movie education! [Apart from
Boorman’s Excalibur OBVIOUSLY].
Luckily I was watching lots of new and old films on the TV too.

Django is different I think, as were
all the Spaghetti westerns that I searched out or stumbled upon during my
teenage years: all of Leone; most of Corbucci; Damiani’s A Bullet for the General. I watched Django almost as many times as I watched Flash Gordon. I loved the
politics - though it was often pretty superficial and rarely profound. Even
more, I loved the style and tone – the different way of seeing things and the
lack of romanticism, the music (so often
Morricone), landscapes, the close ups, the violence and the comedy. And despite
the focus on stylisation they had heart too. All those things were present in Sholay and it made me reflect on how
difficult it is to get right. Tone I mean. How does Sippy navigate so
effortlessly between violence, comedy, melodrama, singing, dancing, buddy
movie? Why is it that I found the violence unobjectionable yet I increasingly
hate the heartless, sterile and clinical brutality of modern action films (Star Trek anybody?). As much as I
debate this with people or go to meetings I’m not sure there’s a good answer. Why
is it that I love (the violence in) Die
Hard and Kill Bill (1) but
couldn’t stand Iron Man 3. Of course
it’s partly subjective but it’s (also) definitely about tone I think. Answers
please.

Most of the Italian
and Hollywood Spaghettis were truly terrible with regard to women, of course,
so I’d love to know if any women enjoy them. Sholay is much better on this score; way ahead of its time, despite
the fun Sippy has with Basanti’s garrulousness.

And my favourite
Spaghetti? Corbucci’s The Great Silence
– one of the bleakest films ever made. I didn’t see it till I was 18 when
it was on BBC2’s Moviedrome. Klaus Kinski and Jean-Louis Trintignant fight it
out in the snow with one of Morricone’s best scores. But I still love the title
tune to Django – I could of sang it
to you at any point over the last 30 years - and was thrilled when Tarantino’s
film began the same way.

Books btw: if you
visit Alex Cox’s website you can download his excellent book 10,000 Ways to Die as a pdf for free.
You can also download his Moviedrome introductions.
Christopher Frayling’s Spaghetti
Westerns is still probably the best introduction. He communicates his
enthusiasm but is never soft on their weaknesses and contradictions.